The mayor then trained his sights on the New City Gas complex, targeting the 1848 Greek Revival gasworks for destruction for a bus-corridor project that neither the Agence métropolitaine de transport nor the Réseau de transport de Longueuil wanted. Public hearings in 2010 made Tremblay back down on that one. The corridor was redirected around the property, but it is still under threat.

Since 2008, there has been an outpouring of support for the foundation that is trying to acquire the Griffintown Horse Palace property, the city’s last functioning horse stable, built in 1862. While the Sud-Ouest borough has thrown its backing behind the effort to save it, the city does nothing. In December it was sold off piecemeal, and its future is in doubt.

The same goes for the 1875 Édifice Rodier, Montreal’s signature flatiron building on Notre Dame St. W., being allowed to go to pot until it is partially demolished to make way for the same bus corridor that the Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal public hearings strongly recommended against.

Condo projects zing through city hall, while the administration ignores the preservation recommendations of the 2008 Griffintown Plan Particulier d’Urbanisme, the 2010 Projet Bonaventure hearings and the Conseil du patrimoine recommendations, Heritage Montreal’s list of threatened heritage buildings (which those cited above are on), and what the public wants.

It seems the lesson of Old Montreal and the Plateau – that heritage sells – has totally escaped notice at city hall. Old Montreal has some of the priciest property in Montreal. The Plateau is now the youngest neighbourhood on the island, drawing young people and families. The same phenomenon is unfolding in the Sud-Ouest and Verdun boroughs. When heritage is given value, culture is preserved, property values soar, quality of life improves.

The significance of these Griffintown buildings is breathtaking. New City Gas, with its 1848 gasworks and 1859 gas storage house off Ottawa St., is the world’s largest remaining example of first-generation (1830-1860) gaslight complexes. Both buildings were designed by John Ostell, the famed architect of McGill University, the Old Customs House and so much more. Most of the few remaining such complexes in the world have been restored. Moreover, the industrial owner, Harvey Lev, is very sympathetic to heritage and the arts. This should be enough to guarantee its future. But no, the city administration’s response has been to harass Mr. Lev relentlessly, slap an expropriation reserve on his property and tear up the original cobblestones in front of the buildings.

As for the Griffintown Horse Palace, it is the city’s last remaining French lot with all the original buildings on it: an 1862 front house, an 1869 rear duplex, and the 1862 brick stable. When this one goes, there will be no other, and this example of an 18th- and 19th-century way of life will have disappeared. A private foundation has worked hard to put together a credible project involving the horses, with significant private financial support. The Sud-Ouest borough has made Ottawa St. a cultural corridor. But no guarantees or heritage citation have come from the city.

These are the kinds of properties that make Griffintown. Without them, it becomes just another bunch of streets with condos.

While most of North America moves relentlessly toward a heritage-based policy of urban renewal around sustainable quality-of-life principles – a guaranteed formula for reversing the exodus to the suburbs – Montreal’s administration goes back to the hoary principle of Dixie-Cup throwaway redevelopment.

Portland, Ore., is a prime example of a city with a sustainable-development plan. That plan has fostered high-tech-based and culture-based industries providing excellent salaries. The city’s population has nearly doubled, and most of these new residents are university-educated young people.

Whither goes Montreal?David Hannais a professor of urban affairs and tourism in the school of management at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

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